Posts Tagged ‘baseball’

Metrorail Brought One-Third of Fans to Nationals Park in 2014

December 22nd, 2014 14 comments

Carrying an average of 11,000 riders to every Nationals home game, Metrorail maintained a 34% mode share to Nationals park in the 2014 season.

How many baseball fans take Metro to Nationals Park? Metro’s rail planning team tracks this statistic, by looking at activity around game times at Navy Yard-Ballpark and Capitol South stations that exceed our typical baseline ridership.  On game days, Metro provides special game-day trains on the Green Line to handle increased loads to and from Navy Yard-Ballpark station.

Over the 81 home games in 2014, Metrorail brought an estimated 890,000 total riders to the ballpark, or about 11,000 riders per game.  Compared to the average attendance of 31,000 at Nationals Park this year, this equates to a 34% mode share for Metrorail at Nationals Park.  Including both entries and exits, Nationals games generated about 1.7 million total trips for Metrorail this season. A few more observations:

  • Interestingly, ridership to the game is typically 8% higher than ridership from the game – some spectators must be finding another way home!
  • Metrorail’s mode share was highest for Friday games (38%), and lowest for Wednesday games (32%)
  • Mode share increases slightly for high-attendance games, but the relationship is weak.  Metrorail’s market share remains mostly stable in the 30-40% range, whether attendance was 20,000 or 40,000.

We’ve posted additional visualizations and the raw data, in addition to the charts in this post. What do you think? What patterns do you see?

Nationals Playoff Games and Metrorail Ridership

October 3rd, 2014 Comments off

When the Nationals reached the playoffs in 2012, about 12,000 fans per game took Metrorail – from all over the region, and even late at night!

Now that the Nationals have clinched a spot in the playoffs, Nationals Park will once again host October baseball beginning this afternoon. How many fans might take Metrorail to and from the game?

To answer that, let’s look back to 2012, the last time the Nats reached the playoffs. Games 3, 4, and 5 of the National League Division Series (NLDS) were played here at Nationals Park – Wednesday at 1:07 pm, Thursday at 4:07 pm, and Friday at 8:37 pm. Attendance at all three games was around 45,000 people. Here’s what ridership (Metrorail system entries) looked like at Navy Yard-Ballpark station on those days:

Nationals Ridership_NavyYard_NLDS2012_byHalfHour_v2

The sheer volume of passengers through Navy Yard station were impressive.  Sustaining over 4,000 entries per half-hour for nearly two hours is roughly equivalent to 4-lane highway, and exceeds what even the busiest stations achieve on a typical day.  For comparison, normal peak-of-peak volumes through Union Station, Metro Center, and Farragut West rarely exceed 3,000 entries per half hour. Read more…